


Operation: Tarkin's Folly

by Laughing_Phoenix, teacup_of_doom



Series: From the Files of Strike Team Vengance [6]
Category: Re-Entry - Fandom, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: GFY, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, OFC - Freeform, OMC - Freeform, Original Characters (Multiple), Strike Team Vengeance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 12:05:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6328435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laughing_Phoenix/pseuds/Laughing_Phoenix, https://archiveofourown.org/users/teacup_of_doom/pseuds/teacup_of_doom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Strike Team Vengeance puts together a plan to relieve Sidious of a potentially valuable minion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Operation: Tarkin's Folly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flamethrower](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamethrower/gifts).



“Wanna put together a mission for the team?”

Phoenix looked up at Teacup, who had just sat down across the kitchen table from her, hands wrapped around a mug of boiling-hot, pitch-black tea. “Sure!” She set the hat she’d been crocheting aside and grabbed a notepad.

“Do we want to suggest one, or do we want to go ahead and plot one out?” Teacup asked.

“I vote we put together a draft, then throw it to the rest of the team and see who bites.”

Teacup nodded. “Sounds like a plan!” She paused for a minute. “So… mission.”

“Hmm.” Phoenix pushed upright and retrieved a bottle of hard cider from the cold box. “Sidious’ minions tend to be linked to large business or technology or security interests. OH,” an idea hit, and she whirled to look at Teacup. “Wanna make Tarkin’s life difficult?”

Teacup’s grinned ferally. “YES PLEASE. The man needs a kick in the pants.”

Phoenix reached for her pad, blessing the Strike Team Vengeance slicers as she pulled up everything she could find on Wilhuff Tarkin. Most of it was not quite legally accessible. “Tarkin’s part of the Outland Regions Security Force. Palpatine was pulling strings to help him get into the Republic's Judicial Academy, but…” She waved a hand, and Teacup nodded. “Mostly the ORSF goes after pirates, but Tarkin’s nastily inventive about it. There was one group, he caught the pirate leader's ship and launched it, fully crewed, on a slow course into a sun. He then broadcast the events aboard the doomed ship in real-time and had any ships trying to come to their aid destroyed.”

Teacup stared at Phoenix. “Dear fuck. Every time I read or hear more about him, I shudder further. I mean, I knew he was bad news, but... “

Phoenix was still reading. “From what I can tell, he... takes a rather liberal hand with the label of "pirate", expanding his duties to harassing those who don't have Greater Seswenna registrations or certain classes of permits.” She frowned. “In theory he's loyal to the Republic, but it looks like in practice he's more loyal to this idea of order enforced by martial law and discipline.”

Teacup made a face and took a sip of her tea. “It’s not good for trade. Or anyone, really. He’s creating his own way of doing things, and it’s going to cause problems if he gets too ironclad. Let’s hope he doesn’t plan to spread the philosophy.”

“It makes him prone to being a) a very useful catspaw for Sidious and b) a complete fucking bastard. I’d almost wonder if Tarkin might look the other way for Sidious, if he might defect and bring some of his not inconsiderable resources with him.” Phoenix pursed her lips. “So we're... let's call it staging a preemptive strike.”

Teacup’s grin turned distinctly evil. “I like preemptive strikes. Vengeful preemptive strikes are my favorite. What are we going to do to him?”

“The goal isn't necessarily to kill Tarkin so much as it is to see him stripped of position and influence.”

“And maybe put a bit of egg on his face to boot,” Teacup noted, with a pretend innocence that fooled no one, even if Phoenix was the only one in the room to see it. “I like it. Take him down a peg. Or three million.”

Phoenix herself was on a roll. “Make the name Wilhuff Tarkin synonymous with gross abuse of power and marginal-at-best competence and absurd overreactions. Make him look like a fool and a liability. Tarkin's not dumb, unfortunately - he is a talented ship designer and military commander. But we can make him a hot potato.”

The two women considered this a moment, trying to decide how to go about it.

“This could maybe backfire on us by driving him into Sidious' arms,” Phoenix admitted, clearly already fond of the idea and unwilling to let any obstacles stop her. “But if we can lure him into, say, attacking a member of Judicial and get it on record, we can let the courts dispose of him in prison or some such.”

“The question is,” Teacup said, “how do a travelling trader, a medic, and a ridiculous droid do this?” DYNO, at her feet, protested his designation. “Yes, I do mean you.” Teacup said fondly. To Phoenix, she said. “We’re not exactly a powerhouse with a great deal of resources.”

“Actually,” Phoenix said, “your traveling history as a - ” She stumbled over her words for a moment as she tried to say three things at once, then threw her hands in the air. “Your history as a traveling trader,” she said slowly, pronouncing each word deliberately, “gave me a few ideas.”

Teacup laughed. “Oh? Do tell.” She appropriated a bit of Phoenix’s pile of scrap flimsi to take notes on. “I do enjoy being an inspiration.” 

Phoenix leaned across the table, gesturing with her stylus. “Here's a rough sketch - we find a reason to be in Greater Seswenna, say picking up something for the Strike Team. We get one of the slicers to tell us where Tarkin's going to be, and we bait him into stopping us. Now this is where it gets tricky: we poke him in the metaphorical eye.”

Teacup raised her eyebrows at Phoenix, then eyed the level of cider in her bottle. “How much have you had? Cause we’re going to need a bigger stick. Metaphorically speaking.”

Ignoring Teacup, Phoenix continued. “One of us, and I'm fine with it being me, is belligerent about being stopped. We give him crap about being a pettifogging lackey of the Eriadu merchant military, imply Judicial wouldn't have him, and generally be rude as hell. While we're doing this, we slip a virus into his ship's computers and use it to reprogram his hyperdrives.”

“Wouldn't that get us killed reaaaal fast?” Teacup wanted to know. “Also, I have zero skills as a slicer. None, zilch, nada. DYNO’s just as bad.”

Phoenix waved that latter point aside. “Which is why we recruit one of the team for the slicing bit, and I'm counting on two things: one, that Tarkin can't actually retaliate against a minor but well-traveled merchant and her droid and a medical professional with a long list of planets she's worked on, both of whom have lists of contacts on multiple planets, for being rude without looking really damned petty and possibly causing an interjurisdictional stink. Secondly, we keep an open channel to, say, AngelQueen on another ship, and if it looks like it's going to get ugly they can either jump in as "escort" or play pirate to draw his people off.”

Teacup did not look convinced.

“The whole point of poking Tarkin is to distract him as we sabotage his hyperdrive or navicomp. We can get him to stop us by transposing our papers - say send a permit first and registration second "by mistake" when it should be the other way around, and then claim a bad comm connection made us think they wanted it in that order and really what is the galaxy getting to when something this minor is grounds for capital ships stopping a small merchant freighter.”

Nudging her notes to the side, Phoenix turned the cider bottle back and forth between her palms. “Ideally we sabotage his ships so the next time he goes to hyperdrive he ends up in an asteroid field… or in Hutt Space... or an asteroid field in Hutt Space, I'll take that too.” She took a drink. “From there it's character assassination. Blow up a few things on ships he designed and make it look like there was a fatal flaw in his work, then spread rumors that his designs are riddled with problems. "Leak" documents purporting to be Tarkin's philosophies of keeping order on a Galactic scale - if he doesn't have a rough draft of an eventual magnum opus somewhere I'll eat this hat I'm making - and make sure they reach the attention of the press corps and a few known pacifistic politicians.”

“Sounds good to me,” Teacup said, scratching down some more notes, checking the level of tea left in her mug before draining it. “Let's go have some fun.”

There was muttering back and forth as the women put together an organized proposal, proposing additions and scribbling edits. “Okay,” Phoenix said finally. “What should we call this?”

“Tarkin's Terrible Tragedy,” Teacup suggested with a shrug.

Phoenix dutifully scribbled something based on that across the top. “Current title: Proposed mission: Operation Tarkin the Tragic.” She frowned at it. “I'm not entirely happy with the title.”

“Okay,” Teacup took a long drink of her tea while she thought. “Tarkin’s Idiot’s Array, Tarkin’s Folly - ”

“OPERATION TARKIN'S FOLLY,” Phoenix shouted, slashing through the first title and replacing it.

Teacup laughed so hard she nearly fell off her chair. “Summon the troops!” DYNO squealed.

The message that was sent out to the members of Strike Team Vengeance, both on-base and remote, went as follows:

> Proposed mission: Operation Tarkin’s Folly.
> 
> Phoenix and Teacup have been plotting.
> 
> Considering Wilhuff Tarkin’s methodologies (see his method of stopping Q'ana’s Marauders) and his known sympathies with Palpatine (better known to Strike Team Vengeance as That Bastard), we believe Tarkin a possible security leak at best. At worst, he is an outright threat - as repellent as the man is, he is not an idiot and should he defect to Sidious That Bastard would gain a competent and utterly ruthless military commander with extensive contacts.
> 
> To that end, we plan to de-fang Tarkin before he gets the chance to join Our Lord’s greatest enemy.
> 
> As the man is regrettably currently an officer in good standing of the Outland Regions Security Force, it seems impolitic to simply kill him. While our plan is rough at best and we welcome the assistance of our sibs on Strike Team Vengeance in both strategy and execution, we suggest that the best plan of action is to render Tarkin a fool and a liability in the eyes of the Republic, leaving him without resources to bring to That Bastard.
> 
> Phoenix recognizes that this runs the risk of driving him into Sidious’ arms, but believes that if pushed hard enough Tarkin can be manipulated into committing a crime (say, assaulting a Judicial member) in front of Judicial officers and be then disposed of by the Republic legal system.
> 
> As the cornerstone of the plan is character assassination, Teacup and Phoenix present the following mission options and welcome further input:
> 
> Tarkin is recognized a competent ship designer, and some of his plans have been recently adopted by the ORSF. Careful use of explosives on these ships would give the impression - aided by a whisper campaign - that Tarkin’s designs are intrinsically flawed and a danger to those aboard.
> 
> Given Tarkin’s methodologies and his known inclinations to the political, it would surprise Phoenix if he did not have a manifesto or similar document among his effects. Should a team slicer be so inclined, finding this document and leaking it along with appropriately incendiary articles from his personal correspondence (or documents that look sufficiently like his personal correspondence) to the press would further damage Tarkin’s reputation.
> 
> Tarkin has recently cracked down on piracy in Greater Seswenna, expanding the letter of his duties to include stopping ships that lack regional registrations or certain classes of permits. Phoenix suggests taking advantage of this to sabotage his fleet. Teacup and Phoenix are willing to play bait by entering Greater Seswenna as our civilian identities and transmitting our documents in the wrong order - say permit followed by registration. Tarkin is likely to stop and challenge us, at which point one or both of us claims a bad comm connection caused us to misunderstand the instructions and engages in a lengthy gripe about recent changes in ORSF policy. This should allow us to hold his attention long enough for an infiltrator to sneak aboard or the team to slide a bit of code into Tarkin’s hyperdrives or navicomps to sabotage them.
> 
> We recognize that this is risky, but are counting on Tarkin’s sense of the political to keep him from imprisoning ‘innocent civilians’ with significant lists of contacts on multiple planets who might cause a cross-jurisdictional incident. Furthermore, if the pilots on the team are willing, we might keep an open comm link to allow them to monitor the situation from a distance and intervene if it looks like things are going badly, either by playing our escort or serving as distraction.
> 
> Phoenix is in favor of scrambling Tarkin’s hyperdrive so that upon their next attempt to jump they are landed in an asteroid field - perhaps one in Hutt Space.
> 
> Teacup is of trader stock and might be able to disguise members of the strike team as merchants, complete with contacts to provide documentation, to facilitate infiltration. She is also willing to provide backup in the form of her own expertise with a bowcaster or the loan of her droid, DYN-0.
> 
> This mission is very much in the early planning stages, and we welcome input from our sibs on Strike Team Vengeance.


End file.
